Chapter Text
Harry’s flat was warm in a way Draco hadn’t expected, yet the space was cluttered with contradictions: a Muggle television sat silent in the corner, its blank screen reflecting the room like a distorted mirror. On the kitchen counter, a microwave hummed faintly, its digital clock blinking the hour in relentless repetition. Draco’s gaze skittered over it. He didn’t have the energy to ask.
The sofa was soft beneath him, but he couldn't relax. His fingers traced the buttery green leather, grounding him in the texture. Photographs lined the walls. Most were magical, their inhabitants caught in loops of laughter or mid-wave. Teddy featured in several, grinning with missing teeth. Draco looked away.
Harry moved through the room with quiet efficiency, his wand flicking dishes into the sink. The click-whirr of the refrigerator door opening, the tap of a glass being set down, each sound was too loud. Draco flinched when the microwave beeped.
“You should try to eat something,” Harry said, voice low, as if he was afraid of shattering whatever fragile silence held them together.
Draco’s throat closed. The toast on his plate had gone cold, and he couldn’t remember how to chew or swallow. He simply sat, trapped in the stagnant afternoon, as the sun began its slow descent. Time seemed to congeal around him, each minute stretching into an hour, until finally, the light failed completely.
Night bled into the city, smothering the last remnants of daylight behind a veil of bruised purple and black. The flat now felt like a fragile cocoon: soft, quiet, but too normal for the horrors replaying behind Draco’s eyelids.
Harry’s bedroom was spacious, the bed wide enough that they could have slept without touching. But Draco didn’t want space. He wanted to disappear into something solid and real. The mattress yielded beneath him, the sheets crisp and cool. He curled onto his side, facing the wall, his body coiled tight as a spring.
Then the mattress dipped behind him.
Harry’s warmth pressed against his back, familiar and steady, and without thinking, Draco leaned into it; he needed that anchor.
“I don’t want to sleep,” his voice was a frayed whisper, barely audible over the hum of the city outside. “Not if I’m going to see… that again.”
The image flashed behind his eyes: Lucius’s swollen eye, the guard’s cruel hands, that wet, choking gasp. His fingers twisted into the sheets.
Harry didn’t hesitate. “I’ve got Dreamless Sleep.” His hand settled on Draco’s shoulder, his thumb brushing the sharp ridge of his collarbone. “Just for tonight. You won’t dream. I promise.”
A vial appeared in Draco’s line of sight, the potion inside swirling a faint, ominous purple. He took it with unsteady fingers, the glass cool against his palm. One swallow, and the bitterness spread across his tongue, thick as regret.
Almost immediately, the weight in his limbs deepened, his eyelids turned to lead, thoughts dissolved into fog. He barely registered Harry sliding in beside him, the arm that curled around his waist, pulling him back against the solid heat of his chest.
“Stay?” The word slipped out, a sigh already slurred with sleep.
Harry’s breath warmed the nape of his neck. “I’m not going anywhere.”
*
The first pale fingers of dawn crept through the curtains. Harry stirred slowly, blinking against the soft light, his body instinctively attuned to the weight against his side. Draco lay curled into him, one hand fisted loosely in Harry’s rumpled nightshirt, his breathing deep and even. The sight of him sent a rush of warmth through Harry’s chest. No nightmares. No trembling. Just this: the quiet rhythm of Draco’s breath against his collarbone, the way his white lashes cast delicate shadows over his cheeks.
Carefully, Harry disentangled himself, pressing a kiss to Draco’s temple before slipping out of bed. He paused to look at him a moment longer before pulling the sheets up higher, tucking them gently around Draco’s shoulders.
The flat was silent except for the distant hum of London waking up beyond the windows. Harry moved through the kitchen on autopilot, filling the kettle, slicing bread, cracking eggs into a pan. The mundane motions grounded him. The toast browned evenly for once, the eggs didn’t stick, and the tea steeped to that perfect shade of amber Draco liked. Small victories.
He balanced the tray carefully - two steaming mugs, toast with jam, eggs still glistening - then nudged the bedroom door open with his hip.
Draco was awake. He lay on his side, staring blankly at the wall, his fingers tracing idle patterns over the empty space where Harry had been. The morning light caught the sharp angles of his face, deepening the shadows under his eyes. He looked like the wrong word might shatter him.
“Good morning,” Harry murmured.
Draco blinked at the tray then up at Harry, something unreadable flickering in his gaze. “You didn’t have to-”
“I wanted to.” Harry brushed a thumb over Draco’s knuckles. “Eat what you can. No pressure.”
Draco hesitated, then picked up a slice of toast. His movements were slow, as if he were reminding himself how to be human. But bite by bite, color seeped back into his face. Harry watched, heart aching, as Draco’s shoulders gradually loosened, the tension bleeding out of him with every sip of tea.
“Thank you,” Draco said finally, his voice rough with sleep. “You’re too kind to me.”
“Not possible.” Harry shook his head, sliding onto the bed beside him, their knees brushing. “Want to stay here this morning? Or would you rather go out and do something?”
“I don’t want to go outside. It seems too loud... Can we stay?”
“Of course we can,” Harry said firmly, catching Draco’s hand and lacing their fingers together. “I could show you some of the Muggle things you’ve been side-eyeing since you got here.”
A beat. Then, almost imperceptibly, Draco’s lips quirked. “...The tellyvision,” he admitted, the unfamiliar word sounding clumsy and uncertain on his tongue. “I’ve never understood how it works.”
Harry grinned, bright and sudden. “Perfect.”
They migrated to the living room, Harry grabbing the remote and settling onto the couch. Draco curled into his side instinctively, knees drawn up, his expression a mix of skepticism and fascination as Harry turned the TV on.
The screen flickered to life with a burst of sound and color, and Draco recoiled instinctively, his fingers digging into Harry's thigh for a second. Then, curiosity won. He immediately leaned forward, eyes wide, lips slightly parted, as if the screen held some kind of alchemy he couldn’t quite decipher.
Harry chuckled under his breath and started flipping channels. The images flashed by: a stern-faced man reading the news, a woman frying onions in a sizzling pan, a cartoon cat chasing a mouse… Each one a fleeting glimpse into a world Draco had never bothered to understand before.
“They’re all… different?” Draco murmured, brow furrowing. “How do they fit so many inside one box?”
“It’s not in the box, exactly,” Harry started, then shook his head. “Never mind. Here,” He clicked again, and suddenly, the screen exploded with movement: a troupe of dancers in shimmering costumes leapt across the frame, synced perfectly to a pulsing, infectious beat. A woman with a voice like liquid gold sang into a microphone, her face filling the screen, radiant and larger than life.
Draco’s breath caught. His grip on Harry’s arm tightened. “Wait.”
Harry stilled, letting the video play. The camera swooped and spun, cutting between the singer’s smoldering gaze and the dancers’ precise, hypnotic movements, all bathed in neon light. Draco stared, transfixed.
“What is this?”
“A music video,” Harry said, unable to hide his amusement. “Muggle musicians don’t just sing their songs, they turn them into little movies. Sometimes it’s just them performing, but other times…” He gestured at the screen, where the singer now strutted through a futuristic cityscape, trailing sparks behind her. “They tell stories. Or show off dancing. Or just… make something beautiful to look at while you listen.”
Draco didn’t respond. His eyes stayed locked on the screen, his fingers unconsciously tapping the rhythm against Harry’s thigh. For the first time in days, the shadows in his expression had lifted, replaced by something like wonder.
Harry’s chest tightened. He wanted to bottle this moment: the way Draco’s lips curved just slightly at the edges, the way his shoulders had lost their usual rigidity, swaying ever so slightly with the beat.
“You like it?” he asked softly.
Draco didn’t look away from the screen. “It’s… ridiculous,” he said, but there was no bite in it. “And completely unnecessary. Who needs all this just to hear a song?”
Harry grinned. “Muggles, apparently.”
Draco huffed, but his eyes stayed bright, his posture lighter. The music swelled, the singer belting out the chorus, and Harry could’ve sworn he saw Draco’s lips mouth along for a second.
The weight of his head on Harry’s shoulder was grounding, his hair soft as spun silk against the worn cotton of Harry’s shirt. Every so often, he would shift, lifting a finger to gesture at the screen with the careful precision of someone deciphering a foreign spell.
“Who is this?” His voice was low, almost reverent, as a man in a sleek suit crooned into the camera, his lyrics dripping with arrogance as he sang rather allusive verses.
Harry smiled, his thumb tracing idle circles on Draco’s arm. “That’s Justin Timberlake.”
Draco made a small, considering noise before settling back against him. The glow of the screen painted his sharp features in fleeting hues: gold, then blue, then violet. For the first time in days, his body wasn’t rigid with tension; he was here, wrapped in the pulse of bass and melody, his fingers occasionally twitching against Harry’s wrist as if trying to catch the rhythm midair.
But Harry could feel the moment the novelty began to wane. Draco’s breath hitched just slightly between songs, as if the silence threatened to drag him back into himself. So Harry reached for the remote, turning the volume down to a murmur.
“This is all pop,” he explained. “Muggles have hundreds of genres. Some of them… well, they’d make the Weird Sisters sound like choirboys.”
Draco’s head lifted, his eyes alight with something dangerously close to interest. “Show me.”
Harry didn’t hesitate. He stood, offering his hand, and Draco took it without thought, their fingers slotting together as if they’d done this a thousand times.
The shelf beside the television was a time capsule of Harry’s haphazard musical upbringing: CDs stacked slightly askew, their cases worn at the edges from use. Harry knelt, Draco hovering at his shoulder, close enough that Harry could smell the lingering scent of sleep on his skin.
“These are CDs,” Harry said, plucking one from the row. “Compact Discs. Music is stored on them, and this-” He tapped the black CD player, its surface a little scratched, “-reads them. Like a… wireless, but sharper.”
Draco’s fingers trailed over the cases, his touch feather-light, as if afraid they might dissolve under his hands. Then he paused.
“This one.”
He lifted a case with a green spine, its cover stark: a man with sad eyes, a cigarette dangling from his lips like an afterthought. His name was scrawled in bold orange: Jacques Brel.
“You’ve got good taste,” Harry murmured, taking the disc and slotting it into the player. The machine whirred to life with a soft click.
The first, melancholic piano notes of a song spilled into the room, raw and aching, followed by a voice weathered by sorrow. Draco went utterly still.
Harry watched as the music wrapped around him, as Brel’s trembling baritone filled the spaces between Draco’s ribs, as his lips parted on an unspoken breath.
And then, impossibly, Draco’s fingers found Harry’s again, gripping tight, as if the song might sweep them both away.
The music swelled and Brel’s voice cracked like a breaking heart, raw and unfiltered, filling the quiet corners of the room. Draco hadn’t moved since the first notes played. His fingers, still tangled with Harry’s, had gone rigid, then slack, as if the song had slipped beneath his skin and coiled around his bones.
Harry felt the shift before he saw it. A tremor ran through Draco’s lower lip, then another. And then a single tear fell, streaking silver in the dim light. Followed by another. Silent, at first.
Harry turned, his stomach dropping. He didn’t understand French, but the sound of the words and the way Brel’s voice frayed on the high notes were enough. It was a song for the ruined, the desperate.
“Draco?” Harry started, reaching for him, but Draco shook his head sharply, his throat working.
“It’s not-” Draco’s voice was a shattered thing.
He simply broke. A sob tore loose from his chest, sudden and violent, and then he was collapsing into Harry, his hands fisting in the fabric of his shirt, his face buried against his neck.
“I’m not sad,” he gasped, the words muffled and wet. “I’m not-”
Harry held him. That was all he could do: wrap his arms around him and hold on, one hand cradling the back of Draco’s head, the other pressed between his trembling shoulder blades. Draco was crying in earnest now, his body wracked with it, his tears hot against Harry’s skin.
The song ended. In the silence that followed, broken only by Draco’s ragged breathing, the CD played the next songs as minutes passed.
Slowly, Draco pulled back just enough to look at him. His face was blotched, his lashes clumped together, his eyes too bright.
“I love you.”
Harry’s breath stopped as Draco’s fingers dug into his shoulders like he was the only solid thing left in the world.
“You make it all so easy,” Draco choked out. “You wake up and just care. You see me like this, fucking pathetic, and you- don’t leave me.” A broken laugh escaped him, sharp with self-loathing. “Do you even realize how impossible that is? How impossible you are?”
Harry’s hands cradled his face, thumbs catching the tears that wouldn’t stop. Between them, a flicker of gold. A pulse of light, faint but unmistakable, shimmered at Draco’s fingertips where they pressed into Harry’s arms. It flared in time with the frantic rhythm of his heartbeat, glowing brighter with every uneven breath.
“I didn’t think I could feel like this. Not after yesterday. Not after everything.” The memory of the day before flashed behind his eyes, and he flinched. Harry held him tighter, and the golden light surged, rippling like liquid sunlight up Draco’s wrists. “But you’re here. You keep choosing me, and I don’t-”
Deserve it.
The words lodged in his chest, too heavy to speak.
Harry’s grip tightened, his gaze unwavering. “Draco.”
“Don’t,” Draco whispered, squeezing his eyes shut. The light at his fingers wavered, dimming for a second, as if even his magic doubted. “Don’t say it back just because I’m-”
“I love you.”
The words hit like a spell to the chest. Draco went utterly still.
A burst of gold, brilliant and warm, erupted from his hands, cascading over Harry’s shoulders like sparks caught in a sudden breeze. It pulsed in time with Draco’s shuddering breath, with the wild, unsteady hammering of his heart.
Harry leaned in, their foreheads touching, his breath warm against Draco’s lips. “I love you,” he repeated, softer now, but no less sure. “Not because you’re crying. Not because I pity you. Because you’re you. I choose you, every time.”
A sob tore loose from Draco’s chest. He surged forward, crashing their mouths together in a kiss that was more desperation than finesse. The light between them flared blindingly for one perfect second, wrapping around them like a second embrace, before dissolving into the air.
Harry kissed him back just as fiercely, one hand tangling in his hair, the other splayed against the small of his back, holding him together as he fell apart.
Draco finally let himself be loved, not because he believed he deserved it, but because Harry had spent every day proving he wouldn’t stop.